Three Day Weekend
Saturday was the start of a three day weekend over what we call Halloween and in Guatemala is All Saints Day on October 31st and Day of the Dead or Dia De Los Muertos on November 1st. It's actually a national holiday, somewhat like our Memorial Day. Families go to the cemetery on that day and decorate the graves of their relatives, similar to Mexico. It's much more festive than in the US with the people having picnics and visiting, and children fly kites from the high points.
On Saturday morning, Susan and I went to visit a coffee plantation within the city limits of Coban. which had been founded by a German family. Apparently many Germans settled here in the beginning of the 20th century, going into coffee farming and cattle ranching. During WWII many were Nazi sympathizers and the US government pressured the Guatemalan government to kick them out. This one lasted however and was very interesting to visit. It was sort of old fashioned in some ways with old buildings and creaky machinery, but produced very high quality specialty coffee which they ship world wide. They also raise cardamom, a favorite spice of Susan.
Another interesting thing we learned was that the fruit of the coffee tree is sweet, sort of like a cherry, it's the seed inside the fruit that they dry and roast. They grew other spices there too like allspice and another one that smells exactly like Old Spice deodorant. It was pleasant to walk through their fields and smell the different spices and talk about all the different varieties of coffee beans.
Stan Withee was back at the hotel working on his report so we went back there and he wanted to go to the local Mayan museum, which was also close. It's a small private museum with a variety of materials from throughout the Mayan region, including locally. They had a lot of pottery and small figures. We found out that the Mayans made intricate molds for their figures rather than carving them, and they had a number of the clay molds there. There were two identical figures which showed that they had come from the same mold. The museum had used some of the original Mayan molds to make some figures of kings with feathered head dresses which they had for sale for several hundred dollars. I thought they were really cool, but there was no way they would make it home safely in one piece as we have three more weeks of traveling.
Amalia, our coordinator from Food for Hungry, wanted to go home and visit her family for the weekend so we were on our own for meals and entertainment. Cobán is a small city with not a lot of places to visit or eat. It's safe enough and the people are very friendly but not much to do. The streets are rough and narrow and full of fast cars and buses. It's frightening to walk along there sometimes with cars and trucks whizzing past inches away, but everyone seems used to it. We walked to dinner at a nice restaurant that has a lot of exotic native orchids on display, and on our way home we were caught in another torrential downpour and got totally soaked as if we had fallen in a lake.
On Sunday morning we wanted to have an adventure and see something different so we decided to take a bus out to see one of the nature preserves in the area, called a biotope. This region is known for its rain forests and some have been preserved and developed for people to experience. There is quite a bit of deforestation going on here so it's important to preserve what they can. They are also trying to save forest corridors for animal migration and breeding.
Minibuses that leave every few minutes in all directions and are very inexpensive, but they pack in as many people as can fit, then stop and pick up more along the road. We made the mistake of sitting next to the door where everyone squeezes in rather than in the back where it is less crowded, and so were pretty squished. Again Guatemalan people are very friendly and considerate of each other and always tried to make room or assist one another, so it wasn't too bad. Susan held one ladies packages, while I shared my two person seat with three other people.
It took about an hour to get to the biotope and they dropped us off at the side of the road. They have a little entrance area with some informational posters and displays, and there was a man with a few words of English there to explain them. We had a choice of two different paths, “senderos”, to take both making a look up through the forest. We weren't sure about the trails, so chose the lower, shorter one. It turned out that they were both fine, well maintained, but the shorter one satisfied us anyway. It didn't rain while we walked, even though clouds threatened and they normally get over 100 inches every year.
We saw a lot of interesting plants, including a wild orchid growing beside the trail which Susan photographed. The forest is so dense that it's difficult to see very far but we did hear some birds, and saw one that we think was a Toucan with a large yellow beak. There were giant tree sized ferns, and leaves of plants several feet across.
It only took us about an hour to make the loop, we could easily have taken the longer one, but that was enough to get a nice flavor of the biotope. At the end they had a little display of plants and animals in the park, sponsored by USAID. There were a couple of stuffed Quetzales birds, but apparently to see a real one is quite rare as they are endangered. They did have a lot of other plants and a few birds and animals as well.
We went back down by the road then and flagged down a passing minibus heading the other way back to Cobán. We were lucky this time because the bus wasn't full and we were able to get seats toward the rear away from the door and arrived home in about an hour. Because it was a holiday there were lots of people out doing things and it was interesting to watch them as we went through the little towns.
Monday was Dia De Los Muertos, November 1st, and on that day people go to the cemetery to remember their relatives who have died, or as they say “fallen” in Spanish. It's a nice family day and people bring flowers and candles to decorate the graves. Like in Southern Mexico they use orange marigold petals and pine needles around the graves, supposedly a tradition left over from the Mayans. The graves are mostly above ground in cement tombs that have been brightly painted with pastel colors. The cemetery is on a hillside overlooking town so it is very pleasant to walk around and talk to the families and look out. Another tradition is that the children fly kites on this day so there were several kids on the top of the hill trying to get their kites in the air. One family was having a barbeque and there is a little chapel on top of the hill with several food vendors there selling local dishes.
We were walking with Amalia our hostess/coordinator, and she was telling us about the various traditions. Most people believe that the dead persons soul leaves their body after death, but can also return if invited. There was a woman with an incense burner waving the smoke of pine resin or “copal” to call the spirits of the dead relatives. Copal has a very distinct smell and was considered a sacred smoke by the Mayas. Susan and I have some at home and sometimes burn a little at Christmas because it smells like pine.
Down at the bottom of the hill outside the gates of the cemetery there was a sort of street fair with carnival type games and vendors. People seemed to really enjoy the simple chance games they had. there. We walked down the hill from there and caught the local bus back to our hotel. It was a really nice holiday I'm glad we got a chance to enjoy it.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Friday
Friday
On Friday of the workshop the plan was to set up the solar stoves the participants had made and cook a meal for everyone. One of the staff loves to cook and she was very excited about trying out both the solar and the rocket stoves. She was going to cook hard boiled eggs and beans and other things to demonstrate their versatility.
We woke up that morning to a torrential downpour. The streets were flooded and the wind was blowing. The climate here is very wet , it's cool and misty much of the year and the tops of the local mountains are usually in the clouds. That's why I wanted to demonstrate the rocket stove as an alternative cooking and water pasteurization method, but I wasn't counting on it being so dramatic a presentation. People here cook over open fires and I also was going to talk about a smokeless stove with a chimney, a cocina mejorada.
We got to the workshop and luckily were able to pull in under an awning to unload our stuff. It was raining so hard that we had to shout over the noise of the wind and rain on the roof, not a good sign for my talk. My original plan was to review the material from Thursday and then examine everyone's water tests. I had a few slides to show about that, then we were going to try out the stoves. It looked like I could set up the rocket stove under the eave of the building and try it without setting the place on fire so that part would still work and I then would have more time to talk about other things.
It's fun to look at the water samples with the participants, usually it's their own local water and so they are very interested in the results. Last year I was a little disorganized about the interpretation of results and people needed reassurance that they were interpreting their results correctly. This time I had everyone line up and one by one we looked at their slides and tubes. I asked each person to interpret their results and explain why they thought the samples were positive or negative, then we discussed them. It's difficult to correctly see the fluorescence of positive colilert tubes in bright light so we sort of crawled under a counter in a dark area to compare their tubes to positive and negative ones.
I was very pleased with how the class was able to correctly interpret their results, which meant that they had been listening yesterday and that they would be able to accurately test water themselves. After they had looked at their samples with me, I had them share their results with Susan and she made a table of results on the white board. About half of the samples were at least moderate disease risk, which is average for me in the testing I have done. Many of the people at the workshop drank bottled water, which is very expensive, but I emphasized how they could save money by just Pasteurizing local water. It also makes a better demonstration to others if you are drinking the same water you are advocating for someone else.
Then it was time for the rocket stove. I asked Stan to set it up for me under the eave and get it ready to light. Like most people he split up some wood which was way larger than necessary for the stove, tiny twigs and sticks work best at first to get the fire started. We lit it and after some huffing and puffing we got it going good. After a little while the flame gets so hot there is very little smoke and it shoots out the top of the stove. Sometimes the air intake makes a whistling sound, so it's interesting to see it work. The lady doing the cooking demonstration put on a pot with cold water and eggs to cook and the large pot began to boil within a few minutes. She also cooked a dish of refried beans and one other dish within a few minutes. One point of the rocket stove is that it cooks very quickly and is very hot and so the women are not exposed to smoke as much as in an open fire.
Everyone was very impressed with the stoves and asked a lot of questions about how to make them. There is some information available about them, but mostly in English. I'm going to try and write something in Spanish with some pictures and make it available to everyone. They are simple to build and not very expensive. I'm hoping someone in the community would be interested in making them and selling them locally which would be a good way to make them more available.
There is also a commercial model available called an “ecostove” that is made from cement. I just became aware of it the day of the workshop and wasn't able to find one to demonstrate, but I'll try to get the local staff of Food for the Hungry to buy one and see how it works. If they are not too expensive they may also be an alternative.
Things moved slowly here and it was then time for a break. I still wanted to talk about other topics like SODIS solar disinfection using UV rays, water filters and “cocinas mejoradas”, but time was running out. The hosts of the workshop scheduled some other activities and when I finally got to speak again I only had about a half hour to cover the rest of the material. I really galloped through it, and promised to send them some material later and then was done.
In summary, I think the workshop was a success. I put a lot of emphasis on accurate water testing and I think the participants understood that. I told them that the health and perhaps lives of people now depended on them to do their jobs well. I said that I was always available to help them and gave them all my email address, and I'll also write them with materials so we can keep in touch. I think follow up with them is very important as well and to encourage them to use the new knowledge they have.
Then I went back to the hotel and took a long nap!
On Friday of the workshop the plan was to set up the solar stoves the participants had made and cook a meal for everyone. One of the staff loves to cook and she was very excited about trying out both the solar and the rocket stoves. She was going to cook hard boiled eggs and beans and other things to demonstrate their versatility.
We woke up that morning to a torrential downpour. The streets were flooded and the wind was blowing. The climate here is very wet , it's cool and misty much of the year and the tops of the local mountains are usually in the clouds. That's why I wanted to demonstrate the rocket stove as an alternative cooking and water pasteurization method, but I wasn't counting on it being so dramatic a presentation. People here cook over open fires and I also was going to talk about a smokeless stove with a chimney, a cocina mejorada.
We got to the workshop and luckily were able to pull in under an awning to unload our stuff. It was raining so hard that we had to shout over the noise of the wind and rain on the roof, not a good sign for my talk. My original plan was to review the material from Thursday and then examine everyone's water tests. I had a few slides to show about that, then we were going to try out the stoves. It looked like I could set up the rocket stove under the eave of the building and try it without setting the place on fire so that part would still work and I then would have more time to talk about other things.
It's fun to look at the water samples with the participants, usually it's their own local water and so they are very interested in the results. Last year I was a little disorganized about the interpretation of results and people needed reassurance that they were interpreting their results correctly. This time I had everyone line up and one by one we looked at their slides and tubes. I asked each person to interpret their results and explain why they thought the samples were positive or negative, then we discussed them. It's difficult to correctly see the fluorescence of positive colilert tubes in bright light so we sort of crawled under a counter in a dark area to compare their tubes to positive and negative ones.
I was very pleased with how the class was able to correctly interpret their results, which meant that they had been listening yesterday and that they would be able to accurately test water themselves. After they had looked at their samples with me, I had them share their results with Susan and she made a table of results on the white board. About half of the samples were at least moderate disease risk, which is average for me in the testing I have done. Many of the people at the workshop drank bottled water, which is very expensive, but I emphasized how they could save money by just Pasteurizing local water. It also makes a better demonstration to others if you are drinking the same water you are advocating for someone else.
Then it was time for the rocket stove. I asked Stan to set it up for me under the eave and get it ready to light. Like most people he split up some wood which was way larger than necessary for the stove, tiny twigs and sticks work best at first to get the fire started. We lit it and after some huffing and puffing we got it going good. After a little while the flame gets so hot there is very little smoke and it shoots out the top of the stove. Sometimes the air intake makes a whistling sound, so it's interesting to see it work. The lady doing the cooking demonstration put on a pot with cold water and eggs to cook and the large pot began to boil within a few minutes. She also cooked a dish of refried beans and one other dish within a few minutes. One point of the rocket stove is that it cooks very quickly and is very hot and so the women are not exposed to smoke as much as in an open fire.
Everyone was very impressed with the stoves and asked a lot of questions about how to make them. There is some information available about them, but mostly in English. I'm going to try and write something in Spanish with some pictures and make it available to everyone. They are simple to build and not very expensive. I'm hoping someone in the community would be interested in making them and selling them locally which would be a good way to make them more available.
There is also a commercial model available called an “ecostove” that is made from cement. I just became aware of it the day of the workshop and wasn't able to find one to demonstrate, but I'll try to get the local staff of Food for the Hungry to buy one and see how it works. If they are not too expensive they may also be an alternative.
Things moved slowly here and it was then time for a break. I still wanted to talk about other topics like SODIS solar disinfection using UV rays, water filters and “cocinas mejoradas”, but time was running out. The hosts of the workshop scheduled some other activities and when I finally got to speak again I only had about a half hour to cover the rest of the material. I really galloped through it, and promised to send them some material later and then was done.
In summary, I think the workshop was a success. I put a lot of emphasis on accurate water testing and I think the participants understood that. I told them that the health and perhaps lives of people now depended on them to do their jobs well. I said that I was always available to help them and gave them all my email address, and I'll also write them with materials so we can keep in touch. I think follow up with them is very important as well and to encourage them to use the new knowledge they have.
Then I went back to the hotel and took a long nap!
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